Bolton, Jezza and MI6

Camilla Long paint a gloriously funny portrait in The Sunday Times of the fruitcakes and loonies in UKIP who have somehow managed to drive the country to the brink of Brexit.

I am now beginning to think that if Henry Bolton is an MI6 plant, then Jeremy Corbyn might well be one too!

  

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/i-was-a-spy-in-the-house-of-the-kazootooting-kippers-jt285hqg9

I was a spy in the house of the kazoo‑tooting Kippers

By camilla long - The Sunday Times


Eyepatches to the left of me, mobility scooters to the right. I’m unexpectedly undercover at the loopiest, groupie-est, most kazoo-tooting event of the year — the Ukip extraordinary general meeting (EGM). “Press” — screams a tiny nodule of politically unrealised frustration in tight trousers at the front of the hall — have been banned because they’re total scum.

“Every problem we’ve had,” the nylon continues, rolling his eyes, “has come about because Kippers have thrown Kippers under the bus in the national press.”

Nevertheless, I’ve snuck in and parked myself in the hall. There’s the usual booing, bitching and hissing, the aggressive clacking of dentures, the heavily taped tundra of electric buttock trolleys and leg supports. At the last EGM in 2000, matters got so unpleasant that one audience member died of a heart attack.

Today a Tupperware army of nearly 1,500 have gathered to debate “the most momentous question facing this country since World War Two”, as Ukip’s leader Henry Bolton later put it. And what can this extraordinary issue be? Europe? Trident? Or as Paul Nuttall once demanded, suitable uniforms for park keepers?

No: it’s Jo Marney’s fanjo. Her lady garden. Her noo.

Two months ago, Bolton, a moth-eaten former soldier who looks like an escaped Belgian bigamist-slash-dodgy dressage trainer, left his wife and children for a woman who looked like a thin, dancing horse. Marney, a 25-year-old bleach-blonde model who described herself as a “presenter, music journalist, model, actor [and] Brexiteer” on her Twitter account, also turned out, according to a series of leaked private messages, to be a Ukip circa 2004-level racist and bigot. She thought Grenfell was a “nest of illegal immigrants”. Nurses were just “posh cleaners”.

Bizarrely, she didn’t seem to know how sperm worked. She thought Meghan Markle (female) would “taint our royal family” with “her seed”.

None of this bothered Bolton, 54, who refused to leave her. Mere hours before today’s drama, he still couldn’t stop talking about his luscious “former” girlfriend in Barbara Cartland terms. The scrutiny he’d undergone was terrible — there’s been “nothing like that since the Profumo affair or Diana and Dodi Fayed”.

This story reminds me not of Diana and Dodi, however, more of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, if Wallis and Edward had lived in Kent and liked hanging out in grimy railway hotels. It’s the second most divisive love affair the far right has ever known.

Outside the hall, David, a Ryanair pilot from Bishop’s Stortford, who appears to be in his flying uniform, agrees that Bolton is way too deep in the sex cave.

“Yes,” he sighs. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.” He has been letting “his prick rule his head. He’ll enjoy himself but she’ll dump him, even quicker if he’s out.”

One of David’s friends, Peter, an “international singer” — really an Elvis impersonator who once worked with Chas & Dave in Spain — adds without supplying evidence that Marney “wanted Farage, but it didn’t happen”. The next best person “was Bolton”.

Whatever. Bolton had the wrong car anyway. “A shabby old Volkswagen,” sniffs David. Even Diane James had “a chauffeur-driven Range Rover”. Bolton’s car “needs a wash”.

Back in the hall, the head of Ukip’s national executive committee savagely accuses Bolton of “lifting the bonnet and tinkering with the mechanism”.

I can’t tell you how little Bolton looks as if he could lift anything or even tinker with it. He has the blank, limp air of a crime scene cutout. He is like Farage, but with all the colour drained out.

Bustling onstage, he gives the most cry-makingly dull speech of the day. It’s like watching the minutes of Petersham Bowling Association’s annual general meeting being slowly printed out. At one point he lists all the places he’s been in the country (the person behind me hisses, “no, he hasn’t”).

Above all, he is “bitterly sorry” for the anguish he has caused his wife, but furious that some elements have contacted her “to see what dirt she has on me”. He is also livid his CV has been called into doubt. Some people are denying he even passed out as Sandhurst’s best cadet. He is contacting the authorities to obtain his military records.

So what? John, a retired carpenter from Northampton, is already 100% sure that Bolton is an MI6 plant. Ukip is “the most powerful party in the country”, he explains, so the government wants to put a stop to it. He’s far too clever, he adds, “and he didn’t even tell us he’d been a Lib Dem”.

Well, if he’s a Lib Dem, he definitely can’t be James Bond. A few hours later, to cheers, Bolton is voted out.

@camillalong

Labour and Brexit (19/01/18)

48 Labour MPs rebelled against the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (a serial rebel himself) whose softly, softly tactics in the House of Commons are paving the way for the Conservative Government to impose a hard Brexit.

Meanwhile 87% of Labour Party members support continued membership of the EU Single Market and 78% of party members support a second referendum on the final Brexit terms.

Corbyn needs to wake up and start practising what he preaches by listening to the views of ordinary party members rather than his own kitchen cabinet. 

  

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/jeremy-corbyn/news/92145/jeremy-corbyn-hit-fresh-brexit?

Jeremy Corbyn hit by fresh Brexit rebellion as Labour MPs defy whip on single market

By Emilio Casalicchio - Politics Home

Jeremy Corbyn was hit by a fresh Brexit rebellion tonight as dozens of Labour MPs backed calls to keep the UK in the single market and customs union after it quits the EU.

Like the Tories, Jeremy Corbyn has insisted the UK must quit the single market and customs union after Brexit - Credit: PA Images

A cross-party amendment to the Government’s flagship EU Withdrawal Bill was rejected by the Commons by 322 votes to 99.

But some 48 Labour MPs voted for it against the orders of their party leader to abstain.

EXCL Jeremy Corbyn facing rebellion as Labour MPs launch bid to keep UK in customs union

SNP chief brands Jeremy Corbyn 'utterly pathetic' over Brexit stance

Dozens of Labour councillors call on Jeremy Corbyn to pledge Brexit rethink

Mr Corbyn suffered a similar rebellion in December when some 64 Labour MPs backed a separate bid to keep the UK in the customs union after Brexit.

One of tonight's rebels, former Shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie, said: "There’s a growing number of Labour colleagues who feel so strongly about the threat of Brexit austerity that they will - with regret - break the whip to defend the interests of their constituents. When it comes to the single market I hope our frontbench will get off the fence before long."

The single market amendment tonight - during the report stage of the bill - was tabled by SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford and was backed by the Lib Dems and Greens.

SNP MP Peter Grant said: "Today was a huge test for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party – and they failed miserably. Instead of voting with the SNP to prevent a devastating hard Brexit, Labour instead chose to sit on the sidelines, allowing the Tories to edge ever closer to the cliff-edge – putting the jobs, incomes, and living standards of millions of people at risk."

Like the Tories, Mr Corbyn has insisted the UK must quit the single market and customs union after Brexit, although he has said Labour wants Britain to maintain tariff-free access to the European market.

The Labour leader faces a battle within his own party on the issue - with 87% of Labour members wanting to remain in the single market according to a recent YouGov poll.

The Government won every vote tonight and a set of amendments tabled by ministers went through without a vote as the EU Withdrawal Bill faced its latest parliamentary hurdle.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said: "From the beginning our approach has been to work constructively with MPs from across the House wherever possible to improve the bill.

"This is a critical piece of legislation that aims to maximise certainty for individuals and businesses after our exit.

"We are looking forward to working with peers as the bill enters its next stage of scrutiny in the House of Lords at the end of this month."